


Four Bullets and a Brother

by Tintinnabulation_of_the_Bells



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Case Fic, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Bad at Feelings, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26827126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tintinnabulation_of_the_Bells/pseuds/Tintinnabulation_of_the_Bells
Summary: After being banished from Gotham, all Jason Todd wants is to mind his own business and take down criminals on his own terms. Instead, a surprise from a Star City hospital about a John Doe bearing a suspicious resemblance to Dick Grayson has him flying halfway across the country and diving deep into the underbelly of a case that's far more personal and volatile than he ever could have expected, and where he'll have to reconcile his own sense of vengeance with his brother's.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Comments: 31
Kudos: 141
Collections: Batfam Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the Batfam Big Bang Challenge, and I owe a tremendous thank you to my wonderful beta [@dariadraws](https://dariadraws.tumblr.com/). Artwork is done by the lovely [ voidmash](https://voidmash.tumblr.com/), [ dreamer-247](https://dreamer-247re.tumblr.com/), and [underthestarlitsk-y](https://underthestarlitsk-y.tumblr.com/). You can find their artwork there now, and it will also be included in the fic as it fits with the story.

Jason hated his phone’s ringtone. Only a few people even had the number, and they rarely used it for good news. Usually, it meant interaction with his family. Even in the field, where the need for stealth blessedly limited their conversations, their mere presence irked him and raised his blood pressure. Roy always just texted him, unless it was an emergency, in which case they’d circled back around to a bad situation, but of course this call wouldn’t be Roy. Couldn’t be Roy. Jason had other people he cared for scattered across the earth and the galaxy, but they weren’t especially inclined to use a cellphone when they could simply teleport into his apartment or send a hologram communication.

At least this time when his phone rang, he knew it wouldn’t be Bruce calling him. Conversations with Bruce ranged from mild discomfort on the best of days to near-homicidal fights on their worst; after their showdown in Gotham, where Bruce had beaten him nine ways from Sunday, it was safe to say their “talking” days were firmly behind them.

He dragged the phone across the coffee table and blearily regarded the screen from his prone position on the couch, checking the contact information.

Nothing — just a number, and not even one he recognized. New York City area code, if he recalled correctly. It was off-hours for vigilante work, both on the East Coast and here in his Chicago apartment, where the phone had just disturbed his morning nap.

He disliked spam calls almost as much as he disliked calls from the rest of his family, but he couldn’t risk ignoring what might be a genuine plea for help. He kept only sporadic communication with most people; it was entirely possible he’d missed a phone number change.

“Hello?” he said, already resigned to the headache the phone call would bring.

“Hello, can I have the name of the person I’m speaking with?” The voice was female but unfamiliar.

Jason scoffed. “You’re the one calling me. If you’re trying to sell me something, you should know—

“This is Star City Hospital,” the voice interrupted.

“Oh.” Star City? The only person he knew with a connection to Star City was dead; even when Roy was alive, they rarely spent time there. “Can I help you?”

“I’m hoping you can,” she said. “We admitted a John Doe early this morning in critical condition. He had no ID, but he did have a cell phone with a single number on it.”

“So you called the number?”

“We’re trying to identify the man as quickly as possible. It’s possible that significant medical decisions will need to be made, and with the patient unconscious, we have no way of contacting someone who could serve as a medical proxy.”

Significant medical decisions likely meant unpleasant, permanent choices between two deeply unappealing options. Things like keeping someone alive through life support after they entered a coma. Things like an operation to save a limb that might put the person’s life in more danger.

“I can’t tell you who he is from the number, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know him. I’ve changed phones a few times, haven’t always kept my contacts up to date,” said Jason. “Can you give a description?”

Some paper rustled in the background, and when the voice next spoke, it was clear she was reciting from a piece of paper. Likely a police report, or maybe the medical record. “Around five-eleven, one-eighty pounds, Caucasian. Blue eyes, black hair. Approximately twenty five old.”

Dick. It had to be him. No one else matching that description would have this number, nor would they have only his contact information and no one else’s, even if it was odd for Dick to have Jason as the only contact on his phone.

He gulped, trying to wet his suddenly dry throat. “I can think of few people who match that description, I’d have to see him for myself to be sure.”

“Are you available to come in and identify him in person?”

Jason considered the situation. Chicago was nowhere near Star City, but the nurse or administrator or whoever was calling him didn’t need to know that. Rifling through his mental notes, he found only one solution; his plans for a month-long stakeout of a particularly nasty gang would simply have to wait. Not because the thought of his older brother filled him with any particular warm and fuzzy thoughts, but at least Dick tried to connect every now and then, despite Bruce’s insufferable intolerance. Dick was one of the few family members who tolerated him, and if Jason wanted to maintain even a sliver of that connection, he needed to be at that hospital. Besides, Dick had helped him back in August after Bruce nearly beat him to death. After Roy scraped him off the rooftop, it had been Dick who directed them to a discreet doctor, Dick who shielded Jason’s location from Bruce until he recovered enough to leave. He owed Dick, owed him an escape from whatever mayhem he’d stirred up in Star City, and maybe owed him a kindness or two after years of vitriol. At least he could come closer to evening the score between them.

“You’ll need to give me a few hours, but yes.”

“Good. He may still be in surgery by then, but it’s difficult to tell.”

Against his rationality, a twinge of something, regret or sympathy or something, shot through him. “Still in surgery?”

“I’m not at liberty to disclose any specific information about the patient’s condition, but I can tell you that it is critical.”

“Understood,” said Jason. “I’ll be there this afternoon.”

Promise extracted, the woman from the hospital hung up the phone promptly. For a moment, all he could do was stare at the peeling paint of his shoddy apartment, watching the swirling of his portable fan disturb the paint flakes that jutted out as if the sight could help drown out the abscess of fear forming in his chest.

_ What have you gotten yourself into, Dick? _

He heaved a sigh and rolled off the couch, shoving his face into his hands as if he could block out the worry like he blocked out the light. No such luck. His best way of finding anything out was to be there in person, and to be there in person, he needed a plane ticket. In short, he needed to focus. He needed to think past the headache building behind his temple.

God, he hated phone calls.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason arrives in Star City and wastes no time digging his teeth into the case, with or without the permission of Dick Grayson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The adventure continues...
> 
> TW for descriptions of injuries/medical procedures, Jason-typical language

The flight from Chicago to Star City took four hours, and it was four hours of no calls, no updates on Dick’s status, no way to know that his big brother wasn't, at that very moment, flatlining somewhere halfway across the country without a single familiar face by his side. Assuming it even  _ was _ Dick — they hadn’t properly ID’d him just yet, and in their line of work, it was always possible someone like Clayface had assumed Dick’s visage for some nefarious purpose. Clayface wouldn’t have Jason’s number though, and it certainly wouldn’t be the only contact in the burner phone they’d discovered on Dick’s person in the process of heaving him back from the edge. While they hadn’t told him much over the phone, he’d surmised from the clipped urgency and the serious tone of the invocation to  _ come as soon as possible _ that there was a solid chance Dick wouldn’t make it another day. Might not even last until Jason arrived at the hospital, leaving him to identify a corpse.

He took a taxi directly from the airport to the hospital, duffel bag in hand. He grimaced at the prospect of flying for multiple reasons, but especially now, when security forced him to travel without his usual stash of weapons. He wasn’t helpless, not by a long shot, but he’d have to make a trip around the city at some point to pilfer a few of his weapon caches. He’d left some behind in case Roy ever needed his help here, but there wasn’t much point in keeping them around anymore.

The lady on the phone had left no instructions to follow once he arrived at the hospital, so lacking a better plan, he stepped through the automatic doors of the emergency room and parked himself in front of the triage nurse’s desk, waiting for her to acknowledge his impatient fingers drumming rhythmically against the scuffed plastic surface of the counter. She gave a distracted nod of greeting when he arrived, then proceeded to ignore him for several minutes as she cradled a phone between her ear and shoulder, typing and occasionally humming indistinct noises of agreement at the person on the other end of the line. His patience wore thin, but he supposed that in an ER, a perfectly healthy man with no obvious sign of injury fell to the bottom heap of her priorities.

Finally, she set down the phone and looked up at him. “Can I help you?” she asked. He noticed that her eyes swept over him, probably looking for an indication as to why he would choose to spend his Sunday evening in a hospital waiting room.

“I received a call earlier today informing me that a John Doe had been admitted in critical condition. He had a phone, only one contact, which was my number. I was hoping you could direct me to him.”

Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. Her assessment of him changed, skepticism creeping in, but she typed away at her computer nonetheless. Finally, she said, “You can’t see him right now.”

A swell of anger crested in his chest, but he kept his voice steady. “I just flew here from Chicago to see this man. You want to tell me why it’s not a good time?”

“He’s in surgery right now,” she said.

“That phone call was six hours ago.”

“Well, he’s still in the theater according to records. Multiple gunshots wounds require a little more attention than your average sprained ankle, you know.”

Multiple gunshot wounds? He’d been bracing himself for bad news since that first call this morning, but somehow, the situation still managed to be worse than he’d feared. He didn’t bother to hide his shock. “Is there anything you can tell me?”

“I can’t disclose any more information about the patient's health at this time, as you are neither his next of kin nor his medical proxy. Once he’s in a room, we were hoping that you would be able to identify him so that we can begin the process of notifying his family or other contacts.”

“And how long do you expect that will be?”

“I couldn’t tell you even if I knew,” she said, shaking her head. “The only other option at the moment is for you to examine his effects. You’ll need police supervision because it’s an ongoing investigation, but perhaps you could provide some insight. They’ll likely want to speak with you anyways.”

_ Goodie _ , he thought to himself.  _ Another complication. _

“Can I do that now, or…”

“I’d have to inform the detective in charge. It could take a few hours.”

“Great, well, if you don’t mind, I do have a hotel to get to, so if someone can call me when my presence will _ actually be useful _ , I’d be much obliged.” He plastered on an obviously fake smile.

“I’ll make a note of it, Mr….”

“Peters. Jason Peters.”

“Someone will call you, Mr. Peters.”

He jammed his hands into his jacket pockets and shoved his way past a middle-aged woman on his way out the door, scuffing his boots against the pavement as he left. Who called someone urgently into a hospital only to tell them to fuck off until further notice? 

Fifteen minutes later he was back inside the hospital, this time wearing borrowed scrubs and the ID badge of some sap named Brad Phillips whose face bore a passing resemblance to his own. From there, it was a simple matter to locate the room where evidence was kept for patients whose cases overlapped with a criminal investigation. He snapped on a pair latex gloves helpfully provided in a box by the door, and began perusing the room. They organized items by date of admission, and a bag full of bloody clothing sat in a box at the very end of the shelf. It was the only John Doe. Aside from the wad of bloodstained fabric (calling it clothing at this point would be exceedingly generous, given its shredded state), the only other items were a key, and the burner phone they’d used to call him. Jason flipped it open and scanned the information. Just one contact — his number — without a name. No other information, no other previously dialed numbers. He put the phone back, and pocketed the key for safekeeping.

That left only the clothing. Jason scanned it for trackers first, using one of the handy gadgets he’d smuggled past TSA, but found none. His manual examination, on the other hand, proved more fruitful, and soon his fingers closed around a lump of something sewn into the seam of the brown leather jacket. Jason used a small scalpel (also stolen from the hospital, though he would be keeping this one) to slice through the stitches, and smiled triumphantly at the result. A flash drive. Old fashioned but, like the flip phone, more secure in a low-tech environment. More evidence to support his theory that the John Doe was indeed his erstwhile older brother.

He slipped out of the hospital as easily as he’d entered it, and then he took another cab to the nearest hotel with at least three stars. He hadn’t spent much time in Star City before, but he recognized the area surrounding the hospital as “less desirable.” Probably a step above Gotham’s Crime Alley, but if he wanted Wifi and a mold-free bed, he’d need some distance. He booked himself a room on the fourth floor and hauled his bag upstairs. Base of operations established, he made himself comfortable at the edge of the bed, pulled out his laptop, and went to work. The first order of business was the flash drive; knowing Dick, there would certainly be obstacles. Indeed, just as he expected, a message popped up on screen prompting him for the password the moment he plugged it in.

“Fuck,” Jason growled. Dick, John Doe, whoever the fuck this was, had encrypted it. Not surprising, for a flash drive sewn into a John Doe's bloody jacket lining, but certainly more complicated than he'd been hoping. He could crack it, but it would take longer than he was fully happy with. First, he tried one of the decryption algorithms he’d learned from Bruce; Dick always liked to imitate Batman’s methodologies. Setting aside his laptop for the moment as it whirred through his decryption algorithm, he took the opportunity to raid the minibar for some whiskey. He downed the first of the little bottles in a few gulps and quickly selected a second on to sip as he dutifully babysat the decryption process.

Midway through his third bottle, the algorithm beeped, and the message asking for a password disappeared, replaced by the contents of the drive. He counted ten folders, each cryptically named. When he opened the first one, his stomach twisted in irritation. There were identifying documents, a scan of a birth certificate, another of a social security card, but all of them were for a man named Grayson Katz. He opened one of the scans, a driver’s license, and suddenly Dick Grayson’s face was staring back at him, blue eyes and sharp cheekbones familiar even with the brutal buzzcut. The name Grayson Katz sat next to the picture. An alias then, though not one Dick had used before, from Jason’s recollection. If nothing else, the flash drive proved that he would, in fact, find Dick in the hospital bed tomorrow.

He sat back, relieved to know that his number hadn’t been found in the phone of a complete stranger, but the relief gave way easily to deep-seated foreboding as he realized that _ this was Dick _ , and based on the nurse’s words back at the hospital, his brother’s survival was far from guaranteed; worse still, should Dick die,  _ he’d  _ have to be the one to report it to the family, who would inevitably blame him somehow. He and Dick hadn’t spoken in months, not since he’d last been in Bludhaven, but that didn’t mean that he wanted him dead. If Dick died, it would destroy Bruce, destroy Alfred, and shatter the foundations of every other relationship in the family, setting them all down an irreversibly worse path.

He shook his head, snapping himself from his own morbid imaginings. Dick’s fate lay in the hands of the surgeons now; best to focus on the flashdrive and soaking up all available information to increase Dick’s odds of long term survival. He set his focus back on his laptop. The first folder contained only identification documents – official ones – but the second one contained bank statements and financial records, none of them belonging to Grayson Katz. There were multiple owners, none with names Jason recognized, so he continued further. The third and fourth folders contained pictures, clearly surveillance or crime scene photos, while the fifth, sixth and seventh were all case notes, and lots of them. He resolved to read them at some point, but before he could plan further, he opened the eighth folder, and the sight within caused his breath to catch and his heart to stutter suddenly in his chest.

_ In Case of Emergency, _ the title of the only document read, and Jason opened it, dreading what he would find.

The stutter returned, even more forcefully, as he read through the section with Jason’s contact information. Not just the phone number, but locations too, lots of them, safehouses scattered all throughout the country. Aliases Jason had used, including his current one, Jason Peters. A list of known associates and their locations.

There was information on the other members of the family as well — some of which Jason would want to examine more closely later on — but Jason’s came first.

The ninth folder contained background information on a man named Giovanni D’Angelo, a name which matched one of the earlier bank accounts. From his skimming of the material, Jason drew two conclusions: One, Giovanni liked to smuggle things – liked it so much in fact that he’d built himself a small empire off of it – and two, sometimes the goods he smuggled included people.

The tenth and final folder contained more financial records, this time for Grayson Katz himself. The main spreadsheet indicated that Katz was employed by (or at least receiving money from) D’Angelo. He deduced that Dick was working undercover, and a brief pass over case notes confirmed it. 

The last case notes were dated from over two weeks ago. Dick likely used the flash drive as backup and kept his more recent files elsewhere. A little more digging unearthed the location of the apartment Dick was using. Not too far from his hotel, but he wouldn’t have enough time to give it a thorough sweep. Dick could come out of surgery at any point, and Jason needed to be there to identify him publicly. And to ask him some questions a little  _ less  _ publicly, such as if he’d lost his damn mind going undercover with only Jason’s number as a lifeline. If he made it through that conversation without killing his dumbass older brother,  _ maybe _ he could ask some questions about specifics, such as whether Jason should worry about a follow-up attack. If someone had shot him multiple times – a clearly intentional and targeted act – then he might still be in danger.

With the soft hum of the central air unit saturating his hotel room and lulling him into a deep focus, the ringtone from his phone very nearly startled him into chucking the blasted contraption across the room entirely. He answered the call brusquely, trying to keep this thrumming anxiety at bay. A strange voice on the other end informed him that their John Doe was currently in recovery and would be transferred to the ICU within the hour. Jason hoped Dick would be awake enough to provide some answers, though experience told him he would have to stretch his patience much further; since when had life ever given Jason Todd a lucky break?.

Sometimes Jason hated being right. At the hospital, he identified the man before him as Grayson Katz and described their relationships as old childhood friends who hadn’t spoken in several years. No, he didn’t know much about Gray’s life recently, he always moved around from odd job to odd job. He couldn’t explain the phone with the one contact or provide any leads on who might have shot him. His parents died years ago, he informed them, and he was an only child, meaning there was no family to contact. 

In return, the hospital staff proved similarly evasive. They allowed him to see Dick long enough to identify him, but without Dick’s permission, they refused to divulge any more information about his status. Jason knew Dick was in serious condition from the brief glimpse he’d been allowed in the ICU, but beyond that, he could only speculate. The ventilator covering his face, combined with the chest tube and bandages and patches of gauze on his torso indicated probable respiratory system damage, and maybe even circulatory, given how alarmingly close to the heart one of those patches lay. He knew Dick had been hit at least once in his shoulder, and had likely broken a bone or two; he’d seen the splint around his upper arm, which was likely temporary until Dick stabilized enough for additional surgery. Most terrifyingly of all, however, was the bandage around his head.

“Please,” he asked the nurse, and he didn’t have to fake any of the desperation in his voice. “His head, is he…”

“Just a graze,” she said, and the doctor in the room nodded. “He likely has a concussion, but that’s really not the most pressing matter at the moment.”

“Can someone notify me when he wakes up?” asked Jason. “He doesn’t have any family I’m aware of, and I think if you ask him, he’ll give permission to inform me about his treatment.”

The doctor frowned. “We’ll need to confirm his identity with the police and search records to see if we can identify any next-of-kin. He won’t be awake for several days — we need to keep him sedated while he’s receiving mechanical ventilation, and I estimate at least that long before he’s fully weaned from it, though it could be longer.”

“Can I visit him?”

“ICU visiting hours are very limited, but yes. Make sure to call ahead of time to confirm that he’s up for visitors, and be warned that his status could change quickly.”

Jason nodded, because as much as he hated the restrictions, he respected that they were likely necessary if Dick’s insides looked even half as bad as his outside.

Of course, just because he respected their visitor policy, that didn’t mean he intended to be an obedient model citizen. The moment he returned to the hotel, he plugged in the little storage device he’d used to download Dick’s electronic medical record. He’d brushed the little chip onto the PAD before removing it just a minute later, before anyone could notice. He wouldn’t receive the latest updates (for that, he would need to hack into the hospital system, which he would  _ definitely be doing _ if they denied him information for too long), but for now, he just needed a general idea of what they were dealing with.

He’d been expecting it to be bad, but the report still floored him.

Someone (or several someones — he’d need to get the police report for the full ballistics analysis) had shot Dick four times. Four. A single bullet could already damage a life irrevocably — as Barbara Gordon could personally attest — but surviving four bullets meant you had to get lucky four times in a row, inasmuch as someone who’d been shot four times could be considered lucky at all.

Reading through the chart, he hesitated to apply the concept to Dick; he’d lived, sure, which indicated some degree of fortune, but beyond that there was little in the record he could call ‘fortunate’.

The head wound had come from a bullet graze, like the doctor had previously said; it would scar, and the force and angle of the bullet’s trajectory had almost certainly resulted in a concussion, but the doctor also hadn’t been lying when she’d said that Dick’s head was the least of his concerns. It wasn’t the two bullets to his torso either, though each – one to the chest, one to his abdomen – came with their own complications. The one in his abdomen had torn into his small intestine and colon. They’d cleaned him up as best they could, but gut wounds were notoriously susceptible to infection. In his chest, the bullet had hit his sternum, fracturing it and two ribs attached to the bone. The force of the bullet had also caused pulmonary contusions, and collapsed his lung.

But no, somehow the wound which had come closest to killing him was, astoundingly, the shot to his shoulder. The bullet had caused a complex fracture to his humerus, but this was a relatively minor concern when compared to the damage to his brachial artery and brachial plexus. The tear to the artery had caused massive blood loss; already repaired with an emergency graft (though it would likely require further surgery), they were waiting for the swelling to decrease and Dick to wake up before attempting any treatment for the nerves.

Batman taught every Robin human anatomy; not enough to be a doctor, of course, but enough to know the implications of injuries to each part of the body and what needed to be done in an emergency to keep someone alive. Jason knew enough to understand the severity of Dick’s injuries, although he’d have to speak with a doctor eventually to grasp the full implications of each wound. He knew enough to understand that Dick had survived by the skin of his teeth, and he wouldn’t be fully out of the woods for some time. His stay in the hospital was likely to be lengthy, and his treatment entirely outside of Jason’s control, at least until Dick regained enough consciousness to authorize disclosure of information to him.

What he  _ could  _ control was how he used his time; for now, he intended to spend most of it determining who’d shot Dick, and why. According to his doctors, Dick wouldn’t be conscious for several days at least, leaving him potentially vulnerable to whoever had shot him in the first place. If Dick was undercover, it could have been an enemy of D’Angelo's just as easily as someone from D’Angelo’s organization, if he’d somehow blown his cover, though Jason was betting on the former — someone had taken him to the hospital personally, not by ambulance, and if his cover was blown Jason doubted someone from the crime ring would have shot him four times only to drop him off at the emergency room right after.

He glanced at the file again and thought of Dick lying in a hospital bed, gravely wounded and utterly alone in a strange city. By all rights, he ought to call Bruce, or at least Tim, who could be trusted to pass along the message. If Dick had found Jason alone in the hospital, he would have notified someone, if not Bruce then at least Roy, except Roy was…

Well, he would have notified someone. But Jason wasn’t Dick, and Dick’s phone only had Jason’s number on it; while Jason rarely agreed with all of Dick’s methods, he always acted intentionally. If he’d left out Bruce’s phone number, then whatever the situation was, he didn’t want Bruce involved.

So, whatever. Bruce could wait. In the meantime, Jason needed to piece together the fragments of Dick’s life these past months, starting with the man at the center of the whole operation: Giovanni D’Angelo.


End file.
